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Wiretaps of Berlusconi’s Teenage Friend Emerge

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi at the Villa Madama in Rome for a meeting on Tuesday with President Danilo Turk of Slovenia.Credit
Filippo Monteforte/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

ROME — A tabloid tidal wave washed over Italy on Tuesday as newspapers published eye-popping wiretapped conversations from a nightclub dancer who said she had dallied with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi as a minor, but whether it would sweep the wily prime minister out to sea was still anyone’s guess.

The wiretaps emerged days after prosecutors opened an investigation into Mr. Berlusconi on charges that he compensated Moroccan-born Karima el-Mahroug, nicknamed “Ruby Rubacuori,” or “Ruby Heart-Stealer,” for sex at his villa outside Milan when she was a minor. In wiretaps, Ms. Mahroug said she had been attending parties at Mr. Berlusconi’s villa since she was 16.

Mr. Berlusconi, 74, who denies all wrongdoing and says he did not know Ms. Mahroug was a minor, is also accused of helping to get her released from police custody when she was detained for theft last spring. Now 18, she said she had asked Mr. Berlusconi for 5 million euros, or $6.7 million, to keep quiet, according to wiretaps published Tuesday in the Italian press.

But Ms. Mahroug is apparently only a face in the crowd. Prosecutors said this week that “a significant number” of young women had prostituted themselves to the prime minister, obtaining cash or rent-free housing in exchange for sex. In Italy, where a facade of Roman Catholic morality masks a high tolerance for illicit romance, Mr. Berlusconi has weathered scandals for years.

But this time, with the prime minister facing possible criminal charges and with wiretaps presenting a picture of a sordid world of orgies and of blackmail by call girls, things are beginning to look different. Mr. Berlusconi only narrowly survived two no-confidence votes in mid-December, and could be forced to call new elections if any one of the allies in his shaky coalition pulled out.

Above all, Italians are increasingly alarmed by the divide between the country’s ills and the prime minister’s priorities.

“It’s not important what he does privately, but what he doesn’t do as a head of government,” said Simone Calvarese, 41, a bus driver in downtown Rome, who said he had voted for Mr. Berlusconi in the past but like many Italians had lost patience.

On Tuesday, the president of Italy, Giorgio Napolitano, expressed “grave concern” over the scandal and called on Mr. Berlusconi to clarify things, while the newspaper of the Italian bishops’ conference, Avvenire, published a rare front-page editorial that decried a crude culture of “power, sex and money,” implicitly criticizing Mr. Berlusconi’s behavior, and called prostitution “morally indefensible.”

Last week, Italy’s highest court removed the prime minister’s automatic immunity from prosecution, and he is holding on to his parliamentary majority by a thread.

But it remains to be seen if the government will collapse. On Tuesday, the opposition stepped up calls for Mr. Berlusconi to resign, but he can fall only if he loses his parliamentary majority, and for now his party loyalists are sticking with him.

“With Berlusconi, the rules from any other place or government don’t apply,” said Mario Calabresi, the editor of the Turin daily newspaper La Stampa. “It’s hard to know if this will really be the last scandal that makes Berlusconi fall, because for him to fall, someone has to bring him down.”

On Tuesday, Mr. Berlusconi said he would not resign. He said he was less the target of a judicial investigation than of “subversive” media attacks.

Indeed, splashed across the press, the wiretapped conversations have gripped Italy. Culled from a range of women, lawyers and associates, the wiretaps show the intersection of politics and the kind of reality-television culture that Mr. Berlusconi has helped create in his decades as Italy’s largest private broadcaster.

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In one wiretapped conversation published Tuesday in La Repubblica, Ms. Mahroug said the prime minister had offered to pay her to keep quiet about her detention for theft. “He called me, telling me, ‘Ruby, I’ll give you as much money as you want, I’ll pay you, I’ll cover you in gold, but the important thing is that you hide everything; don’t tell anyone anything.’ ”

The scandal has a cast of characters that would fill an entire soap opera season. Also under investigation are Emilio Fede, 79, one of Mr. Berlusconi’s oldest friends and the director of a news program owned by his company, Mediaset; and Lele Mora, 55, an agent for television personalities. The authorities are also investigating Nicole Minetti, 25, a former dental hygienist and now a politician for Mr. Berlusconi’s party in Lombardy, who is accused of helping manage the young women in Mr. Berlusconi’s orbit, including intervening with the local police when Ms. Mahroug was questioned about a theft last May.

Prosecutors say the three helped procure attractive young women, many of whom had appeared on the reality television shows that have been a staple on Mr. Berlusconi’s television channels for years, for parties at Mr. Berlusconi’s villas.

A parliamentary committee is expected to begin discussion Wednesday on a request by prosecutors to search some of Mr. Berlusconi’s properties. Among these are offices near Milan that they say could contain documents indicating that some women were given rent-free apartments in a complex owned by Mr. Berlusconi in exchange for sex.

In a conversation published in Corriere della Sera, one young woman named by prosecutors in the prostitution inquiry complained about the prime minister’s looks, saying: “He’s more dead than alive. He’s even become ugly. He should just give up. I hope he’s more generous.”

In another transcript published in Corriere della Sera, Ms. Mahroug compared herself to Noemi Letizia, a woman whose 18th birthday party Mr. Berlusconi attended in the spring of 2009, weeks before his wife filed for divorce, who said she called him “Daddy.” “I call him Daddy, too, but she was his little darling.”

Other wiretapped conversations told of parties in which Mr. Berlusconi, Mr. Fede and Mr. Mora would spend evenings with dozens of women, who would strip down to their underwear while the men watched.

In a televised address on Sunday, a tense-looking Mr. Berlusconi, his face plastered with pancake makeup, attacked the magistrates investigating him, defended his right to privacy and denied that he had ever paid for sex.

For the first time since his wife filed for divorce, Mr. Berlusconi also said he had a steady girlfriend — prompting a wave of speculation over her identity. Italian bookmakers put the best odds on her being a member of Parliament, but a former Miss Piedmont also appeared to be a contender.

Sitting against a backdrop of family photos and a small statuette of a bucking horse, Mr. Berlusconi added that his parties were all conducted with “the most absolute elegance, decorum and calm.”

Gaia Pianigiani contributed reporting.

A version of this article appears in print on January 19, 2011, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Wiretaps Fan Flames of the Berlusconi Scandal. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe